"It's certainly the sort of accident I don't want to have," says expert, "and if I do, I'd like to be sitting in a Volvo seat" +óGé¼GÇ£ Professor Claes Tingvall, MUARC

It's a sad but true fact that WHIPS seems likely to be tested more often than any other safety feature and its value more appreciated by those involved.

Monash University's Accident Research Centre is not alone among traffic safety research bodies in acknowledging the high incidence of whiplash. There are also concerns among researchers that this type of injury is becoming more common.

According to the MUARC's director, Professor Claes Tingvall, whiplash is a tricky problem to deal with because the neck area is so complex, making it hard to isolate the cause and timing of the injury.

"We don't really know whether it is very early in the sequence of events when you are hit from behind, right when the impact happens, or later on when your body is rebounding. For that reason, if you're trying to prevent injury you need different kinds of mechanisms built into the seat," Professor Tingvall says.

"Volvo has picked up all the mechanisms and worked with them. They've closed the gap between the head and the head restraint, they've filtered the energy so the seat back is not getting all the forces involved in the collision, and they've also dealt with the rebound effect where the seat can act like a trampoline."

Volvo's WHIPS seat works in two stages to cradle the body to minimise damage caused by the vicious rebound action triggered by a rear-end collision.

After the impact, the body is thrown backwards to be cushioned, with the whole spine pressed against the backrest and held in position by seatbelts with pretensioners. The entire backrest straightens and moves backwards before tipping back at an angle of 15 degrees, effectively cradling the head and body to minimise the catapulting effect as the collision energy dissipates.

Professor Tingvall says Sweden recognised whiplash as a serious problem about 10 years ago, while many other countries (and their insurance companies) have tended to regard it as insignificant, even fraudulent.

"It is the most disabling injury in modern cars. Whiplash can affect you for life, but because it's always been regarded as not very serious, because it's generally not noticed until 24 hours or so after the accident, there has not been a lot of research done on the problem.

"However in countries where the data is starting to build up, it's being recognised for the problem it is. In Sweden there's been a 50-60 per cent increase in reported whiplash injuries at a time when other types of injury are decreasing, because of the technology.

"There's nothing you can really do to prevent that type of collision. It's certainly the sort of accident I don't want to have and if I do, I'd like to be sitting in a Volvo seat," Professor Tingvall says.